Shepard Fairey — Peace Guard 2 (Stencil, Lisbon)
A guard who protects peace instead of enforcing power.
Armed only with symbol and stance.
Peace Guard 2 descends directly from Fairey's mural work in Lisbon, and this stencil edition carries the wall into a signed studio print. This example is hand-signed and numbered from an edition of 450 on cream Speckletone paper. This is the full story of the work: what it depicts, why the stencil origin matters, how it reached the market, and what to know before you buy.
View this piece at Gauntlet Gallery →
What you are actually looking at
Peace Guard 2 belongs to Fairey's Peace Guard series. The central figure stands as a sentinel for peace — armed only with symbol and stance. It's a deliberate inversion of the militarized guard imagery Fairey so often critiques: the pose of authority is there, but the threat is removed and replaced with aspiration.
Fairey's ornamental framing surrounds the figure with the rosettes and radiant lines that, in his vocabulary, signal aspiration rather than threat. A guard usually stands for control. Fairey's guard stands for the thing being protected — peace itself — which turns the whole iconography of the sentinel on its head. It's the same reversal he performs across his practice, taking the visual language of power and reloading it with a different message.
Why the stencil origin matters
This edition is described as a stencil, and that origin ties the print directly to the wall.
The stencil is the working method of street application — the tool that lets an image be laid down fast, at scale, on a public surface. When a print carries a stencil origin, it isn't a studio image dressed up to look street; it descends from the actual apparatus of the mural. The print echoes the large-scale outdoor piece it comes from and preserves the raw, layered texture of street application within a refined studio edition.
That's the appeal for collectors who care about lineage. You're not just buying a picture of a mural — you're buying an object with a genuine mechanical connection to how the mural was made. The wall and the sheet share a method.
The Lisbon connection
This edition is tied specifically to Fairey's mural work in Lisbon, where he has left a significant public-art footprint.
Fairey's large-scale murals are a distinct and important part of his practice — permanent public works in cities around the world, executed at building scale. When a signed studio edition descends from one of those murals, it carries a piece of that public project into a form you can own. The Lisbon tie gives Peace Guard 2 a specific place and story: it isn't a generic studio image but a companion to a real wall in a real city.
For a collector, that geographic and mural-companion provenance is part of what distinguishes this print. It sits in the lineage of Fairey's public work rather than only his print calendar.
Shepard Fairey, in one paragraph
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970) is one of the most influential American artists of his generation. He emerged from the 1990s skateboarding and street-art scene with his OBEY Giant campaign — an experiment in propaganda and public space that grew into a global visual language. In 2008 his Barack Obama "Hope" portrait became one of the most recognizable political images in modern history. His work is held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, LACMA, and the Smithsonian. Editions release through his OBEY studio and routinely sell out and trade on the secondary market.
The edition and how it reached the market
This is a screen print on cream Speckletone paper, hand-signed and numbered in pencil by Shepard Fairey out of an edition of 450, tied to his Lisbon mural work. The Speckletone stock gives the image a warm, tactile ground, and the stencil origin preserves the layered texture of street application.
For due diligence: the specific year and dimensions aren't stated in the product data for this example, so we won't assert them. What defines this sheet is documented and plain — a hand-signed and numbered screen print out of 450, tied to Lisbon. If exact year or size matters to your decision, confirm it against the specific example.
Authentication: what actually backs a Fairey
Read this carefully, because it's the point collectors most often get wrong.
Shepard Fairey does not issue an artist certificate of authenticity, and there is no third-party authentication board for his work — no Fairey equivalent of Banksy's Pest Control. That is how the entire Fairey market operates.
Authenticity for a signed Fairey rests on the pencil signature and numbering (here, numbered out of 450), the physical characteristics of the edition (the Speckletone stock, the screen-print and stencil process), and provenance. This release is documented in the Gauntlet Gallery Shepard Fairey reference archive, part of that provenance. Be skeptical of any "third-party authentication" claim or a certificate implying an official board signed off — no such board exists for his prints.
Condition: what to check, and why photographs matter
Condition drives value on paper works. This example is described as Very Good. For a screen print on Speckletone, the things worth examining are the brightness of the stock, the crispness of the image, any handling creases or corner dings, and whether the sheet has ever been trimmed or light-exposed.
Because condition is specific to the individual sheet, the listing photographs form part of the condition description, not decoration. The images show the actual piece you will receive; we never assert a grade beyond what they support.
What the market says
Now the numbers — restrained, because this is context, not a promise.
Across recent signed-and-numbered Peace Guard 2 comparables, observed asking and sold figures span roughly $60 to $795, with a median near $350. That very wide band reflects variation in year, condition, edition position, and sales venue.
Hold onto the caveats. These figures are directional secondary-market data, not an appraisal. Value on any specific sale varies with condition, documentation, and where the transaction happens. And market data ages — the range above reflects data reviewed as of 2026. The honest summary: this is an image with a genuine, active secondary market and a notably wide observed range, and no one — including us — can promise where it goes next.
Who this piece is for
A few kinds of collector tend to want this print. The Fairey collector drawn to work with a direct connection to his murals — a print that descends from a real public piece. The street-art purist who values the stencil origin and its mechanical link to the wall. And the place-minded buyer for whom the Lisbon connection carries specific meaning.
If you're none of those and simply respond to the image — a guard who protects peace rather than power — that's a valid reason too.
Frequently asked questions
Is it signed and numbered? Yes — hand-signed and numbered in pencil by Shepard Fairey, out of an edition of 450.
What is the medium? Screen print on cream Speckletone paper, with a stencil origin tied to Fairey's Lisbon mural work.
What does "stencil, Lisbon" mean? The edition descends from Fairey's mural work in Lisbon; the stencil origin connects the print directly to the wall and preserves the texture of street application.
What year and size is it? The specific year and dimensions aren't stated in the available data for this example; confirm them against the specific piece if those details drive your decision.
Does it come with a certificate? Fairey issues no artist COA and there is no third-party board for his prints. Authenticity rests on the signature, the numbering, the documented characteristics, and provenance.
What condition is it in? Graded Very Good. The photographs form part of the condition description and show the actual piece you will receive.
The bottom line
Peace Guard 2 is Fairey's sentinel reversal — a guard who protects peace instead of enforcing power — carried from a Lisbon wall into a signed studio edition. As a hand-signed, numbered screen print out of 450 with a genuine stencil connection to the mural, it offers something many prints don't: a mechanical link back to the public work it came from.
If it's the piece for you, the individual sheet — its number, its condition, its documentation — is where the decision lives.
